This paper suggests that teachers concentrate on the ideational and structural properties of text rather than on information acquired from readability formulas when selecting and using texts. Emphasis is given to the importance of context in the analysis of text, and a framework is suggested for examining the text considering the functions texts…

Fundamentally, negotiation is a process for making decisions and is rhetorical since it is open to view and to rhetorical constructs. The rhetorical construct related to negotiation is invention, the finding of the materials, the arguments, for the discourse. For cross-cultural negotiation, one must display empathy for the varying cultures,…

This paper is intended to serve as an introduction to text analysis as a research tool and vehicle for improving instruction. In terms of perspective, two major theses are maintained throughout the paper: text analysis should be used within the context of understanding that a multiplicity of variables can influence reader/text interactions, and…

A framework for the study of discourse, based on the analysis of three superordinate features of discourse (asymmetry, hierarchy, and continuum), is proposed in this paper. The paper begins by noting the confusion in terminology that exists in the world of composition pedagogy and theory; pointing to the need for a framework for testing,…

The implications of a social movement theory advanced by Jean-Paul Sartre in his "Critique of Dialectical Reason" is examined in this paper. The paper notes that unlike sociologists and rhetoricians who have stressed the psychology of movement adherents, the reasons for movement formation, or the movement's interaction with power agents,…

Models of reading have been proposed to guide researchers and educators in their theoretical research and instructional planning. The models specify important properties of the material to be read and processes the learner uses while reading. Two separate models of reading by K.S. Goodman and D. Rumelhart are similar in that they describe reading…

This study investigated the written and oral discourse of a subject with an established reputation as an author, editor, lecturer, and television host, to determine whether his written discourse was more complex syntactically than his spoken discourse. The oral language sample was taken from a taped television program in which the speaker…

This study related selected principles of rhetorical analysis to teaching as it actually occurs in the classroom. The Aristotelian definition of rhetoric as the means of discovering all the available means of persuasion is central to teaching, in that the entire endeavor of education rests upon the premise that children, as they grow, need and…

In analyzing utterances whose singular property is to become true simply by being uttered, this article discusses the theory of explicit performatives and proposes an alternative explanation which focuses on meaning rather than on the fact of these utterances are speech acts. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

An assignment to write a comment in less than fifty words encourages conciseness and precision. (JH)

Argues that discontinuities between sentences can often be explained in terms of syntactic relationships within individual sentences. (AA)

Examines various approaches to textual description, and argues that the Prague model provides the most adequate criteria for describing communicative dynamism in, for example, narrative, descriptive, or discussion style. (AM)

Focuses on Lyndon Johnson's public statements about Vietnam during the final eighteen months of his presidency in an attempt to gain a perspective on the factors which shape presidential rhetoric. (MH)

Examines the representation of women in the language of important public communication events such as formal public speeches delivered by male political candidates. (MH)